Potential Races

So here's a discussion of the races I'm thinking of trying. Feel free to suggest others. All of these races are in or near Boise . . . or at least I think they will be.

Camel's Back Duathlon
This is in May, and it'll probably be the first race of my season. What's more, I may very well race it as part of a two-person team with my good friend Chris McTiernan (pictured at right). He's now located in Atlanta, GA but he's been trying to make a good excuse to come out here to visit. My mention of trying a race piqued his interest, and we're currently involved in negotiations to make this possible. So, if this does happen, then he'll do the running (barefoot) and this will essentially be a time trial for me. And this is a very good thing, because my running abilities have never exactly been the stuff of legend.

Y Not Tri
As with the Camel's Back Duathlon, this race is organized by the Treasure Valley YMCA. It's a mini-sprint triathlon, so it's super short (400m swim, 10km bike, & 3km run), which suits me just fine. This was actually the first race that McT and I discussed entering (first individually then as a team), but I started leaning toward the duathlon because I swim only slightly better than a brick. But maybe I'll work up the nerve - it's later in the season so my conditioning should be better by then. Also because the swim happens in a pond where ducks like to hang out a lot, and lots of ducks make lots of duck poop and that's the largest complaint from people in this race.

State Time Trial Championships
This one is, I think, usually hosted by Lost River Cycling, which I just joined. In that case, it'll be at least somewhat local. So I may try it (and get absolutely destroyed).

State Criterium Championships
Again, often hosted by LRC. You may have noted that all the previous races have been individual events. Crits can be raced by individuals as well (though the Toyota team demonstrates annually at the Wells Fargo Criterium that a team has quite an advantage) but they're generally raced in much closer quarters. This makes me very very nervous. But the "Citizens' Race" (that for people who have never raced a crit before) this year was pretty thin, so there wouldn't be too much jostling in that class. Even in the Cat 5 (entry-level) category though, things looked pretty hairy in places. We'll see.

I should also mention that I plan to ride some practice time trials starting in the spring. They happen weekly in the desert south of Boise, so I should get quite familiar with humiliation well ahead of any actual competitions I enter. :)

It's past my bedtime and I'm tired.